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3 Tips To Keep Your Employees Engaged During The Holiday Season

December 12th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Employee Scheduling | Employee Time and Attendance | Forecasting | Leave Management | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on 3 Tips To Keep Your Employees Engaged During The Holiday Season)

The Christmas Holiday season is here, which often means, your employees are fully engaged in preparing and maybe dreading for their family and other social events with friends. This is also the time of year when many companies take time to assess their sales figures of the past year and also prepare their budgets and financial goals for the New Year.

While employers expect their employees to be fully engaged at work, this can be difficult during the Holiday season since many are likely lost in the business of their lives outside of work, and will perhaps, lack proper motivation and energy to perform their best work. This is a natural and happens in many other organizations and thus, should not, however, be cause for alarm but rather seen as a way to keep your employees motivated.

3 Tips To Keep Your Employees Engaged During The Holiday Season

Here are 3 tips to help you keep your employees motivated during the holiday season:

Create a wow factor in the office– Bring some Holiday cheer to the office! Once a week during the holiday season, setup a table in the company’s cafeteria with free hot beverages and some light snacks. Everyone loves cookies and other holiday treats this time of the year. Hang up some garlands around the office and tune your radio/stereo system to a station that plays holiday music. In short, create a festive environment that your employees will look forward to each day.

Don’t be a scrooge- This is a time to embody compassion. Be cognizant that your employees will understandably be stressed during the holiday season and, for various reasons. To that end, make your employees schedules a bit friendlier, by offering flextime or and giving them an opportunity to work from home for a couple of days during the week. You will be viewed a wonderful boss and your company will reap the benefits of a happier workforce place and productive employees.

 Highlight your company’s year-end results and New Years goals- Did your company meet or exceed its financial goals of the past twelve months? If so, share the news with the employees whether your met those goals or not. Do not use this time to point out under-performers at your company. If you have an underachieving sales person, have a private conversation with them. You should however, focus on what the company’s goals were for the past year and where you fell short if, in fact, you did. Conversely share the good news if you beat expectations and discuss the targets for the New Year.

Bottom-line- This holiday, aim to create an atmosphere of acceptance, camaraderie and unity, and you can bet your employees will feel more motivated to complete their work. Remember, your employees are your greatest asset and no company can be viable without a happy and productive workforce.

 

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You Better Watch Out, Useful Tips For The Annual Office Christmas Party

December 5th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Employee Self Service | Leave Management | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on You Better Watch Out, Useful Tips For The Annual Office Christmas Party)

It’s that time of year when you can safely pull out that ugly Christmas sweater and not have to worry about wearing it since there will be others like you, who will be wearing one. And, like years past, you and your colleagues have been invited to the company’s annual office Christmas party. And, according to many experts, unless you have a legitimate excuse you had better attend, because not only will your absence be noticed but you could be also limiting your career prospects.

You Better Watch Out, Useful Tips For The Annual Office Christmas Party

Here are a few common sense tips from Dr. Patty Ann Tublin from an article written for The Huffington Post titled ‘Do’s and Don’ts for the Office Holiday Party’ and in no particular order here are a few of these tips.

Tip Number One

“GO! Don’t even think about blowing this party off. Love em or hate em, it will serve you well to be seen at them. Even if this party is touted as being optional – that doesn’t really mean it is. Your absence may very well be noticed. Worse – it may be prone to misinterpretation (he/she is not a team player, is aloof, is a snob, etc.).

Tip Number Two

It’s not good enough to just show up. Since you’re already there – you might as well make the most of it. This is a great opportunity to network with the movers and shakers of your company (i.e., upper management and executives) whom you would normally not have access to. If you’ve never met them before, make it your business to introduce yourself with a brief introduction and non-work related conversation.

Tip Number Three

Dress Appropriately. The office holiday party is not the time to come slinking in with a way too high mini-skirt or stained T-shirt. Rule of thumb: the venue dictates the dress code. If you are in doubt as to how formal or casual the party will be, ask someone whom you believe will know. Every office has that someone who seems to know this stuff!”

These annual Christmas office parties should be seen as fun event and a chance to celebrate, and get to know your co-workers and boss on a personal level. They are not created so, you can “Party like it’s 1999.” After all, who wants to end up being (well, maybe some people) tagged in photos and videos; Snap Chat, Face Book or YouTube, dancing, while seeming incoherent of their surroundings? It could end up being a painful conversation with HR department days later, perhaps resulting in a permanent leave of absence for the party-goer/s.

 

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Working Long Hours Every Day, But Is It Worth It?

November 24th, 2016 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Absence Management | Benefit Accruals | Forecasting | Overtime | Retail | Scheduling | Telecommuting Employees - (Comments Off on Working Long Hours Every Day, But Is It Worth It?)

Every boss appreciates a hard working employee, especially one who will volunteer to stay at work longer to complete that project and meet a deadline. And, in the world of retail and hospitality it’s almost become the norm that employees are expected to work long hours and some split shifts-especially during busy periods Christmas holidays included. But, if all your company’s projects have tight deadlines, does that mean you have to work overtime every week? As an employee in retail, does your schedule include a lot of spilt-shifts? Sooner or later, working these long hours will eventually take its toll.

We all understand that from time to time extra hours are required to get the job done. But, when does all this extra hours you are putting in start to affect your health and, more importantly starts alienating you from your loved ones?

Working Long Hours Every Day, But Is It Worth It?

In an article Minda Zetlin for Inc.com titled ‘10 Reasons to Stop Working So Hard’ she eloquently describes some of the drawbacks of working crazy hours. In no particular order, we selected five reasons out her list that clearly makes a case for why should not be working long hours every time:

“Most of the work is less important than you think-A few years ago, hospice worker Bronnie Ware famously published the top five regrets she heard from her dying patients. Those who’d had careers all regretted the number of hours they spent at work. But many of her patients also spoke of dreams they wished they’d fulfilled.

Your mood is a buzzkill-The kind of irritability and impatience that goes with being overworked and behind schedule will cast a black cloud over the people around you both at work and at home. If you’re an employee, it will damage your career. If you’re a small business owner, it will harm your business.

Sleep matters-“The way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep,” Arianna Huffington said in a 2011 TED talk. She would know. She fainted from exhaustion and broke her cheekbone and is now something of a sleep evangelist. “I was recently having dinner with a guy who bragged that he’d gotten only four hours’ sleep the night before,” she continued. She considered retorting: “If you had gotten five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.”

Your judgment is impaired-The research is conclusive: sleep deprivation impairs decision-making. As a leader, poor judgment is something you can’t afford. Crossing some tasks off your to-do list, handing them to someone else, or finishing some things late is well worth it if it means you bring your full concentration and intelligence to the tough decisions your job requires

You suck when it counts-I can tell you from experience that going into a meeting tired and distracted means you will suck in that meeting. You’ll be bad at generating new ideas, finding creative solutions to problems, and worst of all you’ll suck at listening attentively to the people around you. That disrespects them and wastes their time as well as yours.”

Bottom line: Spending long hours at work might help you meet deadlines, but those long hours, especially when they are done over a long period of time, can affect both your physical and, yes mental state. When you spend a significant part of your day working, there is not enough time to rest and recharge.

 

 

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The 12 Days of Christmas: The Perfect Gift For Every CFO, HR And Payroll Manager

December 21st, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software - (Comments Off on The 12 Days of Christmas: The Perfect Gift For Every CFO, HR And Payroll Manager)

The state of the economy has, at times, served as an indicator that businesses fed with their current time tracking solution, will either upgrade or implement a new time and attendance solution. And, while this year have been no exception, waiting on the economy to improve- while still using manual time sheets is probably costing you more in both time and resources to maintain the system that’s not going to help you improve operational profits.

With the Christmas holidays upon us, new projects for 2016 are likely being discussed including which ones should take precedence. And, in those discussions, it’s also likely several departmental managers are hoping to make sure their capital projects tops the list and gets approval for 2016. If you are a CFO, HR or payroll manager use the 12 gift ideas below to your benefit and you are sure to get your time and attendance project approved.

1. Select the right time and attendance and vendor
Glossy demonstrations are just that. Glossy! Evaluating vendors is somewhat of an art form. Navigating through several options can take a toll and the plethora of options can make it confusing. Take your time and resist the urge to buy the cheapest option. Price should always be a factor but, if you are looking for a time and attendance to last 10 year or beyond, that cheap stuff you saw on the Internet a week ago with a “Do It Your Self Brochure” won’t cut it.

2. Assign the right person to the ATS time and attendance implementation
This should probably head the list and it’s as important as selecting the right solution. If you are using a project manager within your organization, make sure that person is not bogged down by other projects otherwise; your time and attendance implementation will take a back seat. A middle manager who has an understanding of the company’s strategic goals is a solid fit for users. They must however, be empowered to facilitate C-level buy-in and support because they will be responsible for choosing how the application is used and how to construct business process flows.

3. A realistic implementation plan
There are no magic bullets with a time and attendance deployment, regardless of their size or scope hence, the need for a realistic plan. Moreover, it’s only natural to experience a series of ebbs and flows during an implementation. Some of the best project plans do not address key critical success factors, such as time for data integration, organizational change management, business processes and workflow design and user acceptance. In order for your implementation to get off on the right foot, you should consider bench-marking your plan against best-in-class and time and attendance solution. Put another way, talk to references and ask them about the challenges they went through during the implementation. The notion that every implementation went smoothly and without a hitch, is a fallacy.

4. Get buy-in
You would not buy a house for you and your fiancée to live in without letting them know so, why would you purchase a time and attendance and not get buy-in from other departments who will have to use the solution and will be impacted by it? The chances of success increases exponentially, when you get your colleagues and other employees understand the benefits of such a system.

5. Keep it simple
If you are having a time and attendance installed for the first time, stick to the basics; tracking employee punches, overtime, paying statutory holidays, and shift premiums. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by adding every conceivable feature and attempting to use it all at once and end up being frustrated. In order to avoid this, take a more gradual approach by seeing if certain new functionalities create too much of a burden. Sometimes it’s better to go-live with the basics and to schedule add-ons later, when you are ready for them.

6. Start over if you have to
If you find that you are spinning your wheels and getting nowhere it’s probably best to start over. Take a closer look at your plan; is it realistic? Do you have the right project manager and/or is he/she consumed with other projects within your company while also trying to manage the implementation? There is nothing wrong in taking a step back and between you and your vendor redoing the plan and adding realistic milestones to complete the project.

7. ROI and business benefits
The senior team within your organization is not going to be happy with your implementation unless it delivering tangible business benefits that they can see. Merely implementing the time and attendance solution is not going to deliver business benefits unless; your senior management team can see it. However you can use the ATS “realization framework” that translates some of the expected business benefits into measurable metrics that can be used throughout the organization. Your executive team will be doing back flips over this.

8. Corporate culture
Be mindful of your company’s corporate culture ahead of deploying the solution. Some people will be completely resistant to change. If they are using an automated time and attendance solution for the first time, they will have their own set of ideas that may be solely based on their old system’s functionality, yes even if it’s paper time sheets. People, who are reluctant to move away from their antiquated systems, will focus on the software and not the business functions driving the company. Therefore, it’s important to seek the advice of your vendor to help them understand which processes are necessary and when to revamp it entirely.

9. Make sure you understand why you are implementing a time and attendance solution
This is arguably one of the most important ones. By clearly understanding your business objectives and what you’re trying to accomplish with an ATS time and attendance system, you will be able to make a more appropriate decision on which route to take.

10. Bring in additional resources if you have to
Some companies are notorious for implementing (or trying to implement) with inadequate internal and external resources. No matter how talented your internal team is, chances are that they are not experienced enough to implement without outside the deep expertise of an ATS implement consulting team that can bring expertise and business methodologies to help your team implement faster and more inexpensively than they would otherwise.

11. Bypassing the milestones and rushing to the finish line
One of the major problems with time and attendance projects is that they are treated like sprints to a go-live finish line, when they should instead be treated like a marathon of continuous improvements and adjustments to account for business and technology changes over time. ATS organizational readiness assessments help customers see the areas of resistance and organizational risk that need to be addressed as part of an effective organizational change management plan.

12. A successful time and attendance implementation
A new time and attendance solution is a unique opportunity to improve your data model and improve inefficient business processes. Unfortunately, some executives go into time and attendance implementations with the low expectation of simply not failing. The good news is that ATS have proven with several customers that time and attendance implementations can be a resounding success, and using our proven methodology – they offer relatively smooth go-lives, more efficient business processes that deliver tangible business results.

ATS is happy to help you provide any one or more of these gifts for your senior management team. To learn more about ATS go to our website as you plan for your time and attendance project for the New Year.

From all of us at ATS, we say Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year to you and your team.

The 12 Days of Christmas: The Perfect Gift For Every CFO, HR And Payroll Manager

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3 Tips For Dealing With Holiday Stress

December 3rd, 2015 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Benefit Accruals | Labor costs | Leave Management | National Football League | Payroll | Web-Based Time and Attendance - (Comments Off on 3 Tips For Dealing With Holiday Stress)

You would think we had some kind of coping mechanism to handle the holiday season. After all, it’s an annual event which many of us look forward (especially the retail sector) to, for the; shopping, eggnog drinking and corporate parties. Ok, some of us look forward to this. And, maybe some or many of us are simply dreading the holiday season because we have to visit with family members that we would rather avoid. Regardless of how we approach the season, the stress permeates the air around us.
In an article penned by yoga trainer, Dana Santas for pros in the; NHL, NFL, MLB and NBA- she offers 3 tips that will help you get through the holidays season with a little less stress if you follow her advice. The following tips are:

3 Tips For Dealing With Holiday Stress

 

“Breathe your way to calm and control
Relax your shoulders, neck and upper back. Inhale through your nose and exhale out your mouth, emphasizing your exhalation. Be sure to release your rib cage downward as you exhale fully.

Get-off-your-feet pose
Simply lie on your back with your legs elevated by a pillow, up on a chair or even straight up the wall (known as legs-up-the-wall pose in yoga).

Stretch away your stress
While standing, simply raise your arms above your head at shoulder distance. Take five long, deep breaths. Then inhale as you reach and hold your left wrist with your right hand; exhale as you side bend your entire body to the right, stretching out your left side. Hold for a breath or two. Inhale as you return your arms straight above your head.
Repeat on the other side.”

You can read the article in its entirety at cnn.com. Hopefully, these tips help you navigate the hustle and bustle that has become a part of this holiday season.

To learn more about ATS you can join follow us on Twitter, GooglePlus, LinkedIn or Pinterest to join in the conversation. And to register for a free webinar or download a demonstration, go to our website.

 

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Top Ten Christmas Holiday Season Tips, Lists and Gifts

December 5th, 2014 | Posted by Apex Time Solutions in Benefit Accruals | Scheduling | Time and Attendance Blog, Workforce Management Software | Time and Attendance Solution | Workforce Management Solutions - (Comments Off on Top Ten Christmas Holiday Season Tips, Lists and Gifts)

Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are now the rearview mirror, and retailers are now focusing their attention on one of the world’s biggest shopping season. Yes this bonanza of a holiday season always lives up to its shopping hype. So, cue the credit cards and upcoming mad dash to the malls and, with retailers rubbing their hands in glee-you know the Christmas season is upon us.

In the spirit of the holiday season, we chose three separate top 10 holiday tips from different websites that geared towards businesses and consumers:

From Holiday Best.Com “Top 10 Christmas Gifts for Kids 2014”

Books
You cannot go wrong with books, and that’s one of the definite facts of live. You can get your kids educational books such as history books, encyclopedia, classical fictions, literature, you name it.

You can get them paperback editions of their favourite graphic novels, a biography of their favourite music artist, or even inspirational books such as the “Chicken Soup” series.” The entire list can be found on their website.

From Kate Taylor, Staff Writer at Entreprener.com

Collect data
“If you collected information on your staffing, hours and sales last year, this holiday season is going to be much easier. If you didn’t – a common small business mistake – now’s the time to play catch up. You might learn the hard way when you overstaff or understaff, but at least next year, you won’t have to deal with the unknown… again.” You can read the top ten list in its entirety on entrepreneur.com

Using a robust time and attendance solution to collect, manage and assimilate data will leave you worry free this holiday season.

From Harvard Business Review, The Top 7 Management Tips

Pretend You Have What You Want:

Your mind is often your greatest tool, but as anyone who has been taken over by fear, frustration, or worry knows, it can also be your greatest enemy. Whether you’re concerned that you don’t have the respect of your peers or that a customer isn’t calling you back because she’s gone to a competitor, overthinking the issue only serves to compound the worry. Instead, pretend you have what you want. Act as if your peers respect you or as if the customer is loyal. These may be fantasies, but what you’re worrying about may be as well. It’s better to stop the worry and act confidently; chances are better that you’ll get what you want.

If you happen to be a payroll or HR manager and a new time and attendance system is on your list of things for this holiday season, ask your manager to download a demonstration from our website. It comes complete with an ROI tool kit, finance options and a variety of bells and whistles.

Top Ten Christmas Holiday Season Tips, Lists and Gifts

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